In the fields of metal coil printing, punching, and shearing there has been little satisfactory incorporation of registration systems which utilize spaced registration marks on a surface of the metal coil. As used herein the terminology "metal coil" refers to an elongated sheet of steel, aluminum, other metal or metal alloy of relatively uniform thickness which can be rolled or coiled upon itself and which can be unrolled or uncoiled to be passed through machinery adapted for such purpose.
One type of machinery through which a metal coil may be passed is a printer mechanism adapted to apply a pattern to a surface of the coil. U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,665 describes a printer mechanism which may be utilized to apply a pattern to a metal coil where the resulting metal coil includes spaced registration marks on its surface. However, such patent does not address potential pattern misalignment which may occur between two different patterns being applied to a coil, such as where two different ink colors are applied to the same coil surface.
After patterns have been printed onto a surface of a metal coil, a later operation which the metal coil is typically subjected to is to be passed through a metal coil press machine which includes a press device which typically operates substantially perpendicular to the surface of the metal coil and repeatedly shears the metal coil or punches the metal coil. For example, such a metal coil press device may be used to cut a metal coil into discrete sheets or such a metal coil press device may be used to punch out portions of the metal coil such as to form can lids with a desired pattern thereon. If the press device does not punch or shear the metal coil in the desired place there is the possibility that the end product may be defective. In a press punch device the end result may be can lids which do not include the full portion of the desired pattern. In a press shear device the end result may be a shear which is made through a portion of a pattern. One way to address such problems is to only feed discrete sheets of metal into such machines such that errors do not accumulate. However, it is desirable for purposes of speed and to otherwise reduce manufacturing costs to directly feed the metal coil into such press devices. U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,665 addresses the problem from the perspective of trying to assure that the pattern printed on a metal coil is uniform and within tolerances in order to reduce errors which could be caused by non-uniformity of the pattern. However, it would be desirable to utilize metal coils in such press machines even where the pattern on the surface of the metal coil is not within desired tolerances. Further, even where tight tolerance is maintained in association with the pattern printed on the surface of a metal coil it is possible for other factors, such as cumulative error, to cause a punch or shear to occur at undesirable locations.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.